Seems I don't actually write all that much about fishing these days, although I suppose that most of my ramblings come back to the rivers in one way or another. Anyway, this time a new camera, some good friends and a cracking piece of river happened to coincide with the first real summer evening of the year.

We arrived at the river at 6ish and crossed the wooden bridge over my old friend the Nadder. Looking over the bridge the river strikes you as a vastly different creature to the one I know so well, only 3 miles upstream. Darker, wider, more sluggish, but still my Nadder, at least my Nadder for that last field length, before it falls off the edge of the known world. Plunging into the unknown reaches of the Avon and surging off to Downton, Fordingbridge and ultimately Cristchurch harbour.

The sun, still hot on our backs throws a golden colour over everything, like wearing yellow polaroids or peering through a quality street sweet wrapper (is it only me remembers doing this as a kid?). There was a huge amount of fly life evident as we crossed the water meadows, heading for the Avon; sedges, mayfly, olives, gnats, caenis - matching the hatch obviously wasn't going to be a problem but I had a sneaky feeling with that much food on the wing, figuring out exactly what the fish were likely to be feeding on could be.

Wading into the tiptoe inducing depths, fording fantastic beds of ranunculus it wasn't long before everyone was into fish. Mostly small chub and dace, but we know this stretch holds some real lunkers so even the wee brownies, picture perfect as they were, were somehow just not really satisfying.









8pm and the light was changing, more flies were about, but still no change in fishing. Lots of tiddlers, a brief encounter with a lump of a chub for one of our number, but nothing of any size.





9:30pm, light fading fast. Mayfly and sedges everywhere. Can't see to tie a new fly on so I blindly fished on. More tiddlers, more dace, more chub; a pattern repeated amongst everyone.

But then just as I'm about to turn away, pack up and go home, I notice something. Nope, no lunker to grace the end of this tale, a visual spectacle for you. Surely, one of THE most unique fishing views in the country, if not the world? If the fish aren't biting, it's not far to look for divine inspiration...





So, maybe the bigger fish hadn't turned on to the food yet, being the first warmth of the summer evenings to come. Maybe our flies were wrong, maybe the casting was poor (especially mine). BUT, it was one of those evenings that remind you why it's called fishing, not catching. The world is a beautiful place, as anglers we are lucky in that we actively take the time to look and feel it.

~ malcolm

I've included this one before but it just seemed fitting:

What is this life if, full of care,
we have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

- William Henry Davies 1871-1940

Got a new camera! Yipeee!

Nothing more exciting today than a quick test of the camera this lunchtime. Normal service resuming.

~malcolm

In the absence of a camera I'm just posting a few shots from it's last outing. No clever words today, just a few photos from me and Luke's surreptitious jaunt round (and under) Salisbury one sunny Sunday morning.




(for some reason I really like the shot above, not sure, but something about the composition tickles me)







Oh, and as always the mayfly start to hatch and the weather turns. 35mph winds and dropping temperatures aren't conducive to good fishing conditions, but two weeks ago in the sun, the Nadder was heaving with little flies and plenty of hungry fish were interested.



~ malcolm

Well, I won't be taking any new photo's for a whee while I'm afraid.

In a carry on moment that involved a set of windy stairs, a brick chimney and a cunningly placed lego brick (six stud straight block if you'd like to know) and one pair of sensitive bare feet, my camera took a fateful tumble down the stairs. I'm hoping that I'll get at least some of the value back from the insurance but time will tell. In the meantime I thought I'd get the begging bowl out here and ask for help. Any help that people can offer in these tough financial times will be gratefully recieved; £5, $5, £20, $20 - doesn't matter. Any help is going to get me back on the road to making a go of this here photography thing and keep you in river porn for when you are stuck in the office! If you happen to be in the fishy trade then perhaps we could do a deal for a wee advert, I've always tried not to do so with this site, but in these circumstances I may be swayed. E-mail me if you are interested.

I'll try to use some of the old photo's I haven't used to date to keep entries coming on the site, but apologies if you have seen them already.

~ malcolm

plip plip plop.

A sound that's music to my ears this year, the sound of some fresh life being breathed into rivers that although not entirely low, are not as high as in reality they ought to be. I fished the Monnow a few weeks back and it was pretty much at summer levels, not good for the first month of the season. Anyway, where was I, oh yes, plip plip plop.

I'm out on Salisbury plain, hard hat on, work boots covered in chalk so sticky that loctite really should have patented it years ago and the rain is neatly bouncing off my hat now, splintering into a fine spray and splashing into my eyes. Oh, it's nice to be out though, watching the puddles gurgle and ooze their way into the calcified nothingness below the grass, off on their way to the Avon.

A miraculous journey all told, it starts with some mystical mojo between some hydrogen and some oxygen. There's a bit of molecular how's your father, a bit of super cooling, a bit of updraft, a bit of downdraft, some clever special effects on TV weather channels and before you know it, that heavenly fall out is going plip plip plop off some guy on Salisbury plain's hard hat.

Springs gurgle, giggle and push and those individual plips and plops are tumbling over themselves, surging like opening time at the Harrod's sale into our rivers where they bumble and bounce majestically through rolling fields and tree lined carriers; over crashing wiers and hatches, under busy roads and through towns. Past noses of munching cows, under the bellies of gobbling swans, through gill and fin the river bound plips and plops go on; rolling onto the sea and the end of the cycle. Rebirth by evaporation.

Funny to think that taking the busy roads and town centres away, the river has been running in the same cycle pretty much undisturbed for thousands of years, the key feature of the landscape. I think some time ago (and I'm too lazy to check back through posts) I called our chalkstreams the crystaline veins of southern England, and as you look back in history the more obvious their importance becomes.

Many of the current population living in this area are unaware of what a chalkstream is, unaware of it's historical, ecological and sociological importance. To a happy few of us though the river runs as much through our veins as it does the rolling chalk landscape. If ignorance is bliss I'd rather know my rivers and be miserable.

I'm a fairly recent convert to the pull of the rivers, recently having passed my 38th birthday I count as a relative spring chicken on the Wiltshire Fisheries Association committee and I know I've been raging against a certain fishing 'clique' over recent posts, just don't be assuming that I care nothing for the past and the efforts of others that have made the place into what it is today. The river ran as much through the purists blood as it does through mine, they just chose to deal with it in a slightly different way is all, I've no doubt that they rebelled against conformity and stricture in their own way as I have in my days.

I received an email from America this week, it wasn't offering me viagra or extra inches and it wasn't telling me that I'd won a Nigerian lottery so I opened it and to my surprise it was from a nice guy who had historical family ties to the Nadder. Robert's father and grandfather both fished the Nadder in their day and it seems the passion for the river has now gone through at least three generations, hopefully one day the grandchildren of the grandchild can come over and fish, what a mind boggling thought! A river really and truly does run through their veins.

I've kindly been granted permission to use the couple of photo's below of Robert's grandfather. A finer, pith helmeted, mustachioed man you couldn't hope to find. The pictures really give an immediate image of that brave new world. A world of opportunity and exploration, no mobile phones, no email, no TV; just donkeys, rifles and indigenous Oxacan indians who by all accounts were and still are a honorable and noble race.

Anyway, this fine old boy was Paul Engleheart. Born 1879 in Appleshaw, Hampshire, His father was vicar of a small parish church. Paul left the UK for Mexico in 1908 as a fully trained engineer, built dam/powerhouse, railroad to Lago Botella (the Bottle) in the Central Mexican Highlands in the corner of the states of Oaxaca & Michoacan. He dodged bandits, saw the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) and watched the battle of Ceyala from a hilltop; this is known as Pancho Villa's demise. His cavalry made multiple charges against entrenched troops with barbed wire and crossing machine gun fire. Paul is said to have described those soldiers were the bravest men he'd ever seen, he was very moved.

I can't begin to imagine that sense of adventure, of being on the edge of something new and brave. These days we have to shoot a rapid, climb a rock face or straightline a couloir to get that feeling of pushing ourselves mentally and physically. With the advantages of modern technology I again find myself asking what we have lost as the world shrinks.

Again, thanks for letting me share the story Robert. The Nadder is still here, and fishing on it is yours or your grandchildren's anytime you want it...





~ malcolm